Online dating is a huge industry these days and hundreds of millions of people have now at least attempted internet dating hoping to find "the one!" So is it really possible that true internet romance can emerge from the intertubes?

Personally, I have many friends that half tried online dating and even gotten into serious relationships, however, so far none of them can claim that their respective internet romances ultimately lead to a life long relationship such as marriage or the finding of a soul mate.

According to the major dating sites though, there are in fact people getting married as a result of internet dating use. Lets take a look, shall we?

Recently, Match.com released some statistics regarding online dating activity and trends on their site:

• 56 million first emails sent per year
• 132 million winks sent per year
• 12 couples got married or engaged today thanks to Match.com
• Match.com users go on 6 million dates each year
• 1 in 1,369 dates leads to marriage on match.com

Now lets take a look at some of the statistics calculated on eHarmony's site:

• 3.6M unique visitors/month
• 236 eHarmony members marry every day or 86,102 marriages per year!

Not too shabby assuming their statistics are true.

Now lets compare how the above paid online dating sites stack up next to the largest free dating site, PlentyofFish.com.

According to the Plenty of Fish dating site, it claims to have the following:

• Over 10 million members
• It's users will go on 18 million dates this year
  
• Over 800,000 relationships are formed as a result of the site

It's interesting to note here that PlentyofFish chooses to focus on the word "relationship" and does not discuss any type of marriage statistics at all. And what really defines a relationship anyways? Does it mean long term internet romance or could be anything from marriage to intimate encounters? Who knows!

So you've had your online dating profile setup for quite some time now, made it known that you are seeking a long term relationship and have even managed to go out on a bunch dates. Yet, things seem to have fizzled out and you wonder if all this online dating is worth your time and effort, that perhaps your "one" is not to be found online.

According to the above stats there do seem to be people getting involved in a internet romance of some sort, so it's hard to say whether the online dating thing works at creating long term relationships for people.

What's your opinion? Can true love be found in the online dating arena? Have you ever gotten in a long term relationship as a result of internet dating? Let me know in the comments:)